The newly remodeled Ferry Building featuring a food court where big names in the Northern California artisan food world, such as Acme Bakery, Cowgirl Creamery and Frog Hollow Farms. They will be where the gated areas are below. The farmer's market will be just outside the main food court and on the back plaza.
Photo by Craig Lee/San Francisco Chronicle

Photo: CRAIG LEE

The newly remodeled Ferry Building featuring a food court where big...

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Photo: CRAIG LEE

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Steve Sullivan of Acme Bakery in the area where his new store will be in the newly remodeled Ferry Building. He standing next to a specially made tile art to reflect his type of business. The other stores have tile art to reflect their stores as well.
Photo by Craig Lee/San Francisco Chronicle

Photo: CRAIG LEE

Steve Sullivan of Acme Bakery in the area where his new store will...

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Photo: CRAIG LEE

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The Ferry Plaza farmer's market along the Embarcadero at Vallejo street. It will be moving to the Ferry Building in April. Photo of people gathered around the Hamada Farms stand. Hamada Farms is located in Kingsburg.
Photo by Craig Lee/San Francisco Chronicle

Bay Area food disciples can be a gossipy bunch. The cabal of cooks both professional and amateur is like a family -- quick to celebrate victories and just as quick to criticize a really stupid idea, all in a loving way, of course.

That's why the measured, polite discussion about a seminal change in the San Francisco food scene is so curious.

On Saturday, about 75 regional family farmers and artisan food vendors will leave their temporary digs on Green Street and set up shop a few blocks away outside the Ferry Building along the Embarcadero. The long-awaited move gives the famed Saturday market a permanent home.

But the project has another part. In the coming months, a collection of elite, artisanal food shops and restaurants will fill the inside of the building, completing a project that may well be the city's only shot at creating a great public market in the tradition of Seattle's Pike Place Market,

Vancouver's Granville Island or New York City's Grand Central Terminal.

So far, reaction has been a mix of optimism and skepticism.

"As far as what the inside turns into, I hope it's great. But it could be a culinary tourist attraction without the feel of the Saturday market," says David Gingrass, owner of Hawthorne Lane restaurant.

"It could be good or it could be bad," says Barry Lawlor, a San Franciscan who regularly shops at the Saturday farmers' market in the spring and summer. "I'll go so long as they don't make it too expensive and as long as it stays like it was meant to be."

The inside food hall and outside market are the jewels of the Ferry Building's $90 million renovation. The interior will become a seven-day-a-week food court and retail center. The farmers' tables, organized by the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, will eventually spread throughout 8,000 square feet of open-air arcades in the front of the building three days a week. Additional food and farmers' booths will fill the back lot on Saturdays.

The interior space is designed to be as far away from a suburban food court as a Cinnabon is from a Frog Hollow Farm peach tart. Only what developers deemed the cream of Northern California food producers were chosen to fill the small naves that line the grand central hall. Cowgirl Creamery will sell cheese. Acme Bread will bake baguettes. Hog Island Oyster Co. will shuck and serve shellfish. Debbie Zachareas of Bacar will sell wine. Nan McEvoy will sell olive oil. Slanted Door's Charles Phan hopes to sell noodles. The Imperial Tea Court will sell tea and pots.

The only chains will be Berkeley-born Peet's Coffee & Tea, which opened its 246th store inside the Ferry Building, and Seattle-based cookware store Sur La Table, which has outlets as far away as Ohio and New York. (Developer Chris Meany originally approached Williams-Sonoma, but company executives didn't want to compete with its Embarcadero Center store.)

So here's the big question food fans are asking: Will the hand-picked mix of shops and family farmers be an authentic showcase for Northern California's food culture, or will the development so codify that culture that the Ferry Building becomes a food Disneyland that locals shun and average shoppers can't afford?

"There's always that concern," says Frog Hollow Farm owner Al Courchesne, who has been part of the downtown San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market since it began in 1993. He will have a permanent storefront inside the Ferry Building.

"It's going to depend on the vendors and how they represent their product. If they maintain their product's quality and if they educate their customers as to why their product is different, then it will work," Courchesne says. "It's all about educating the consumer that this stuff is local, regional, handmade, hand-picked. The food will speak for itself."

Sue Conley of Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station was one of the first of the Bay Area's elite producers to sign on, almost three years ago. Her name helped Meany draw other tenants, almost all of whom were quite skeptical of how their philosophies about preserving small farms and local food traditions would meld with a multimillion-dollar downtown development.

Conley was sold when she realized the project would be fundamentally different than "a collection of 20 gourmet food shops." Rather, the hall will be filled with sole proprietors who do one thing really well. And that strict tenant selection process, coupled with Meany's uncompromising dedication to this vision even in the face of California's economic downturn, were key, Conley says.

And it doesn't hurt that the building's proximity to the bay provides the ideal temperature and humidity for cheese.

Meany, who specializes in historic renovations and is best known for restoring the Flood Building on Market Street, admits he bit off more than he anticipated with the project. On paper, it seemed perfect -- a city built on food needed a public space to showcase it, and the farmers' market needed a permanent home.

And the customer base was solid -- between 8,000 and 12,000 people getting on and off the ferries, 15 million visitors traveling to San Francisco each year, and hundreds of thousands of downtown office workers who might want to grocery shop after work. The access to every sort of public transportation was unrivaled. And the renovation of the 104-year-old building with its five-story skylights would reinvigorate a dramatic public space that is one of the most recognizable landmarks in San Francisco.

What he didn't count on was the idiosyncratic approach organic farmers, chocolate makers and bread bakers have to business. Because most of the tenants are small businesses, no one was ready for what developers call "a rollout" -- a sort of prefabricated plan to ease the leasing and building of new units. Political stands on food, globalization and even the very basics of capitalism were subjects for debate, and negotiating leases and sealing deals were akin to herding skittish cats.

"I underestimated how they had issues about whether a developer would share their ideals. There was a fair amount of suspicion about what we were about," Meany says. "We always thought what we would do is provide a home for this group of people. We weren't going to fabricate anything."

It wasn't until a few big names in the artisan food world signed on -- Stephen Singer of Acme Bread and Sue Conley and Peggy Smith of Cowgirl Creamery, in particular -- that things got rolling. Many people waited to see if Alice Waters, the unofficial figurehead of the California food revolution and board member of the farmers' market organization, would sign on. She considered it and said no, but her taciturn support and her dictum that the philosophy of the farmers' market be preserved helped keep the project on track, Meany says.

Meany's wife, Michelle, who is a financial supporter of Alice Water's Edible Schoolyard and has worked on community cookbooks and food-centered fund- raisers, played an important role, too, he says.

"At a point early in the process we realized this was going to be hard. Were we going to be true to the vision or not? My wife was half my guide and half my tormentor. She beat the hell out of me. She was sitting there going, 'I'm not going to let you screw this up.' "

The nature of the project was hard enough, but the events of Sept. 11 and the faltering economy hurt, too. Some tenants expressed interest then dropped out. Leases were renegotiated. The date for the farmers' market move slid from October to March and finally to this Saturday. Backers hoped everything would open at once, but the main hall's permanent shops likely won't hit critical mass until June or July.

"We wanted all these artisanal people, so everything is going at an artisanal pace," says Eleanor Bertino, a publicist who served as a broker between the developer and some tenants.

There is another thing backers can't control -- the atmosphere of the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market, which has grown to become a social gathering spot, chef hang-out and educational center. Will the, well, organic nature of the market translate to a more formal setting?

Only time can answer that.

"I will go and see if it's sucky," said shopper Thea Anderson on a recent Saturday morning at the market's Green Street lot. "If it is, I won't go back. This place has already gotten a little yuppie."

Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market essentials

-- Saturdays: Open from 8 a.m.-2 p.m., year-round, rain or shine. In addition to food and produce from 65-110 farmers, depending on the season, the market also will offer education programs that allow shoppers to meet producers or shop with chefs as a way to learn more about sustainably grown agriculture.

-- Tuesdays: The Tuesday market at Justin Herman Plaza will move across the street to the Ferry Building's open-air arcades on April 29. Hours will be 10 a.m.-2 p.m., year-round.

-- Thursdays: An afternoon farmers' market will start May 1 and will feature some small regional farmers and artisan food producers who do not participate in the Tuesday or Saturday market. From 3-7 p.m., year-round.

-- Sundays: Beginning May 4, a Garden Market featuring everything from vegetable starts to houseplants from small regional nurseries will be held from 8 a.m.-2 p.m., year-round, rain or shine. Plans are under way to offer programs and workshops about urban gardening. Some farm produce and artisan food products will be available.

-- Parking: Special Farmers' Market parking can be found at 75 Howard St. (at Steuart) in a 400-stall garage. Cost is $3 all day on Saturdays and Sundays.

-- Bag check: The market will have a bag check at the front of the building so shoppers can leave their heavy bags, retrieve their cars and drive into the loading zone to pick up purchases.

The interior Ferry Building food hall, with permanent food stalls and restaurants, will be open seven days a week. A few shops are already open, but the majority as scheduled to be open by July. . Chronicle staff writer Karola Saekel contributed to this report.